This
web-book presents a visual-conceptual-experiential documentation of four
occupied industrial sites in central Amsterdam, researched and recorded between 1990 and
1997 and between 2006 and 2008.

The
earliest text was almost all written before
1996 and was prepared for a book whose publication
lapsed. Though in some cases refering only to what is now past - the presentness
of the experience it conveys is, for me at least - and hopefully also for some
who made these marvellous places - a monument to their existence ... De Loods is
now destroyed and the Silo gutted. The pre 1996 text is still in the present tense;
to convert it to the past would be laborious and sometimes experientially
destructive. Though some factual descriptions of the destroyed sites are now
pointless (in terms of saving future visitors' work), to excise them would
unravel text and the atmosphere of discovery and wonder that the experience of
these places afforded the writing, (facts also inform interpretation of the
pictures especially vis à vis size distortion via wide-angle lenses).

Photo
subjects are never interfered with: care is taken not to disturb the
arrangements/patterns of objects from large to tiny; lighting is as found - I never
use flash or imported light; only extremely rarely have I had to
switch on an in situ lamp to collect a picture
... and only a lamp that I knew was in normal use, and only with a
recorder's sense of 'guilt'.

Some
pictures, resized and compressed for the web, have been minimally re-enhanced to
conserve visibility (not to increase 'attractiveness').

The
site's content will change as info is added and edited. The biggest
(ongoing) additions are in the Tetterode section. Tetterode survived the late
1990s destructions and continues to evolve (mainly driven by the growth of
families). A batch of
recordings made in spring 2008 enables a view of the development of this huge
factory-squat/collective over 18 years.

http://www.angelawright.co.uk/
- an artist's public-site installations (my partner's - but -
it shows relevant examples of 'use-less' environmental interventions
that can be compared, as an alternative type of personal
manifestation, with the
pragmatically-improvised environments in this 'web-book'.)